


if i die young

by thegirl (orphan_account)



Series: the world's end [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, I think you all know where this is going, Modern AU, Mourning, Soldier!Jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-18 23:59:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2366750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her laughter turned to screaming sobs in less than a second, Bran told her later. He said that she had looked like the world was ending.</p>
<p>Nobody else seemed to get that it had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if i die young

They always say that you know, you just know, when someone you love dies. That you feel it, in a cosmic way, that you’re never the same. In the weeks since, Arya has worked out that when Jon was shot four times in the chest at point blank range, she was in trig.

She even knows which one - they were going over the Pythagoras theorem for the thousandth time, all she remembers of the lesson is that she was bored out of her mind, thinking of going home and swimming keenly. He hadn’t even crossed her mind, because he’s been gone for long periods of time for about three years now, and he was set to visit in a month and a half.

While she was warm and safe in a maths classroom, bemoaning her fate, Jon was dying, dying, dead.

And she didn’t feel a thing.

She hadn’t even thought it could be anything bad, when three days after the- after the- after the geometry class the two officers knocked on the door. She doesn’t know what she had thought now- it was all a blur, a terrible blur, but she had been watching America’s Next Top Model with Sansa and making fun of the ridiculous dresses and feeling pretty elated when she answered the door.

And no, she told the grim faced officers, Eddard Stark wasn’t home but yes, this was his house, and he’ll be back in five minutes, do you want to wait inside? Do you want to sit down? She had felt a bit foolish, wearing her pajama bottoms and a baggy t-shirt in front of the official looking men, and had considered going up and changing, but no, too obvious.

She hadn’t even thought, she hadn’t considered, how could she have known-

She should have known.

Because in a way, Jon had always been hers, more than anyone else’s. They looked the same, with their dark hair and grey slanted eyes and long fingers, and whenever he wrote letters she was the first to rip them open, and stroke the stamps with a reverence that nobody else has ever had, and he asked after her, every single time, even the times when they couldn’t write back because he was on the move to gods-knows-where. She kept every last letter in a box, making sure not to crumple them, taking more care than Sansa would have thought possible.

When she was little, she had clambered onto his back day and night with no warning, and he had never pushed her off, just wandered around to her whims, strong hands holding her up and never dropping her, not once. She can still feel his phantom fingers tickling her sides and resting on the back of her neck, can still hear his voice in her ear with some dry remark, but she knows she’s already forgotten his laugh, his only-for-her laugh.

When they had been told, Arya had been the first to react.

She had laughed.

They all looked at her like she was mad, and she was, they all were, Jon couldn’t be dead, Jon couldn’t be dead, Jon was hers and only hers, Jon was invincible and rising quickly through the ranks, Jon always put flowers in his letters and they always arrived alive, and that meant he was alive, the last flowers had been crown imperials, he had called them, and they were a little wilted now but still in a glass vase on the dining room table, the orange blooms bright against the neutral colour scheme. Jon couldn’t be dead, that was ridiculous, just a stupid joke, just a cruel joke, just an impossible joke-

Her laughter turned to screaming sobs in less than a second, Bran told her later. He said that she had looked like the world was ending.

Nobody else seemed to get that it had.

After she had ran blindly up to Jon’s room, which had been half converted into an office about two years ago, but his bed was still there, and all of his things squashed into the corner, she had slammed her whole body against the door and screamed, hitting her head with the force of closing it, but she hadn’t cared, just sobbing louder.

Through the floorboards, Tyra Banks was talking about if you were to succeed in the world of fashion you had to be fierce.

The next scream burns in her throat, and it chokes her, and she turns the lock with difficulty, with shaking fingers, just as the first tears pour down her face. Her forehead thumps against the white painted wood, and she’s never moving from this spot, never again.

It feels like an avalanche of sadness, and it’s never over, because there’s a never ending supply of memories, Jon covered in flour as he and Robb laugh so hard they start crying, crying, she can’t stop crying, Jon taking her to the swimming pool and teaching her how to do underwater handstands, the chlorine going up her nose, bitter in the back of her throat, Jon and her trying to cook and almost setting the kitchen on fire, and they both stink of salt and smoke for weeks, Jon learning how to braid Sansa’s hair because with her new job mum didn’t have the time anymore and Arya asking for him to plait her short strands once because she wanted to be pretty, and Jon making a point to call her beautiful every time he sees her ever since, Jon coming home drunk and letting her run her fingers through his hair as he sobbed that his mother never wanted him, and their dad didn’t want him either, not really, and Arya telling him fiercely she wanted him, who else did he need?

Arya wants him now, wants him so bad she thinks she’s going to die with how much she wants him, her pulse pounding in her ears, and she remembers falling asleep on Jon’s chest more times than she could count, because he wouldn’t tell the others that fearless Arya was terrified of thunder storms, and he wouldn’t make fun, his heartbeat steady and lulling her to sleep.

She wants him to be here now, she wants him to not be dead, she wants him to not be dead-

Arya stays in Jon’s room crying, dying, all night, and he never comes home.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really sorry for the downer of a story, but I just wrote it in under an hour and couldn't shake it. My apologies. Please, as always, leave reviews and kudos if you enjoyed it. Thank you!


End file.
